Yet, as the reform-minded "fighter mafia" showed, the F-4 was inherently flawed as a dogfighter and suffered too many avoidable losses to smaller and more nimble MiG-21s over Vietnam. For a successor to the F-4, John Boyd, an Air Force pilot turned Pentagon procurement officer, rejected a wish list of requirements in favor of a performance equation based on his authoritative energy-maneuver theory of fighter combat. This offered aircraft designers a wider scope for their talents. The result was the superb F-16, with the runner up becoming the Navy's F-18.
Yeah, exactly — swagger. The F-4 is pure coolness.
It’s the Han Solo of jet fighters.
The technical nitpicking is just nerd stuff.
Oh, I agree the F-16 and F-18 are nice in a Luke Skywalker kind of way.
But anyone with any sense of aesthetics has got to love the F-4. It’s the rumbling Harley Davidson of fighter jets.